The brief manhunt for Travis Blake ended with his arrest in Maine Thursday as members of the NYPD’s Regional Fugitive Task Force took the alleged killer of three into custody in coordination with local law enforcement agencies.
Charges are pending Blake’s extradition back to Queens, police said.
The 29-year-old Blake was identified Wednesday as a “person of interest” in the triple homicide investigation into the murder of three family members who were discovered dead in the South Jamaica home on Friday, June 24.
Blake had been living in the home at 116-11 155th St. and was reportedly the estranged boyfriend of 55-year-old Karlene Barnett who was killed in the triple homicide at the location.
The saga began last Friday when officers from the 113th Precinct responded to a 911 call of an aided female just after 2 p.m. and found 22-year-old Vashawnna Malcolm bound and gagged by duct tape lying on a bed in a second-floor bedroom. She was unconscious and unresponsive, with stab wounds and apparent trauma to her head, police said.
A search of the home led to the discovery of two more victims in the basement. Barnett was found with multiple stab wounds throughout her body near her son, 36-year-old Dervon Brightly, who had suffered severe head trauma and multiple stab wounds, according to the NYPD.
EMS responded and pronounced all three dead at the scene. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the exact cause of death for each of the three victims, police said.
